Posted
by
timothy
on Monday September 13, 2010 @01:03AM
from the don't-cross-the-streams dept.

angry tapir writes "Researchers at Fujitsu Laboratories have developed a wireless charging system that they say can simultaneously charge a variety of portable gadgets over a distance of several centimeters without the need for cables. The system, which will be detailed at a technical conference in Japan this week, could begin appearing in mobile phones and other products as soon as 2012, the company said. Fujitsu's system is based on magnetic resonance in which power can be wirelessly sent between two coils that are tuned to resonate at the same frequency."

Funny, since the concern not long ago was making wall warts more efficient (switching ones did a good job on that) and working on reducing "leaky" devices like TVs and monitors that don't turn fully off (my NEC has a hard off switch for that reason). But now we can lose any and all those gains with an inefficient transfer system.

Yay.

They'll have to forgive me if I wish to stick with my nice, efficient, wired connections.

Okay, we'll sort out that out after the 456,917,831 other things which waste more time/energy/money. The top 100 are several orders of magnitude more important than this.

It's really a drop in the ocean. It's the equivalent of spending 5 minutes trying to cut open a can of shaving cream to get the last little bit.

I used to go a little OTT on saving paper, or closing the fridge door ASAP, until I realised that the ink is orders of magnitude more expensive, and that the worry (no matter how little) of keeping the fridge closed is not worth the relatively small amount of money lost each year.

We don't live forever. Let's make life more convenient whilst yes, picking the sensible low and/or middle hanging fruit for energy savers.

You need some help with math. A drop in the ocean times hundreds of millions of people times multiples per day is a lot of water. And that's exactly why so much energy is wasted. Energy prices would almost drop in half in the US if people with your math skills would pull their head from their tail.

The amount of energy wasted on transformers left plugging into a wall is simply staggering and is the exact opposite of "a drop in the ocean." Now add to this an extra 5-15% waste when items actually are charging

I'm sorry, but 5p per year per household *is* miniscule - there's no denying that. 5p x population seems like a lot, but then you need to divide it by the population again to see that 5p per year really is just that - 5p. If there were a quadrillion people in the world, then we can make 5p x quadrillion sound like a stupid sum - that doesn't mean it counts. It's all proportional to the much bigger energy drainers.

Talking about such trivial energy wastage as though it's important is doing the damage in my op

Funny, since the concern not long ago was making wall warts more efficient (switching ones did a good job on that) and working on reducing "leaky" devices like TVs and monitors that don't turn fully off (my NEC has a hard off switch for that reason). But now we can lose any and all those gains with an inefficient transfer system.

Why would you need your desktop computer or TV to have wireless power? I'd expect this would be useful mainly for mobile devices or things that for some reason or another need power but can't have a battery or wires. The "powerpad" that's out right now which is technically wireless is marketed as a convinient charging station for your cell phone, handheld gaming systems, camera ETC. With that, you have to set the thing right on top of the charging station, but 15 cm isn't that far either, it's probably n

I believe GP was commenting on how much power is wasted in "standby mode" on such devices. For example, HDTV panels are often reported to consume less than 1-watt on standby but if you ask them to cache program info then parts of the system are active to monitor the DVB broadcast stream, often consuming 20-watts (or more).

Also there's been a push, in the EU in particular, to have real, zero power draw off modes. I don't know that it is a big deal, but I see their point. A bit of draw might not be much, but when you have a lot of devices and it happens all the time, it adds up.

I'm not sure that it is worth worrying a ton about, however in general efficiency makes sense when possible. Currently wired connections have as close to zero loss as you can get. There is a tiny bit of loss for the resistance of the wires and a bit of

It's a temporary problem anyway, born of our (again temporary) dependence upon power sources that are very expensive, and ultimately limited - petroleum, gas, etc. We will switch to practically unlimited sources of power - we have to - and as we do, the issue of vampire power will go away. Solar, with storage; nuclear; etc. Petroleum power is convenient because its easy, but given the other sources, it's also stupid, because petroleum is also a resource for things we can't replace.

GP's point is that waste is only something to worry about when you also have scarcity.

Whilst there will always be some sort of finite limit to the power supply, electricity could be made so cheap to produce that it's not worth worrying about saving it, at which point waste becomes something of a non-issue.

It might still be "not a good thing", but it could become an acceptable evil if the cost of the waste really was minimal.

GP's point is that waste is only something to worry about when you also have scarcity.

Waste can still be a problem if there is totally no scarcity, since waste heat will become an issue if everyone can use as much energy as they want. The Earth may even start glowing red/white hot (everyone would be having heat pumps etc, facing out to space):). While you certainly could still live under such conditions (lots of energy to throw at the problem), it would be a rather ugly situation.

As for "standby waste" power, the "stand by" power draw of the modern "energy star" stuff is already tiny enough

Waste doesn't have to be a good thing. It only needs to become irrelevant. Then it's not a bad thing, either; the fact is, problems only arise when waste is a bad thing. Your assertion of "never" is incorrect.

If there is more than enough power for our needs, and there is no penalty for using more or less power, then we are in an altogether good place.

I want to know how much desk space my eight charging pads will take up (one for each device - you can bet they won't be compatible).

Oh, wait, I see the point now! Once you have a SONY charging pad you'll prefer to buy another more SONY products because buying a competitor will mean you lose another six inches of desk space - it's the memory stick con in disguise!

Because I have a computer, a laptop, my wife's laptop, a tv, a sky box, a DVD player, a video player (Yes we do still have one) and a standard lamp all competing for socket space.

Are they all going to be within a 15 cm radius of each other? Because otherwise this wouldn't help, it's only 85% efficient at 15 cm and drops off from there, if they're going to be any further, this won't really help. Not to mention, I really doubt anyone is going to be making VCR players that can be powered wirelessly.

No wires means no physical ports. Which means no holes in the case. Which means better environmental sealing, lower manufacturing cost, less things to tangle, trip over, remember, replace, get chewed up by the cat/dog/child, clutter up the desk/bedside, and, last but not least, carry.

We are *very* close to a no-wires solution right now, and I am really excited to see it happen. Bluetooth for audio; wifi for data; inductive coupling for power; satellite GPS for location; acceleration sensors for motion; compass and gyros for orientation; standard AM, FM and even shortwave for non-networked news sources; TV of various standards... all in our hands. And you can add various sensors from there. I grew up in the 1960s, and let me tell you, these ideas are fabulous. The fact that they aren't ideas, but are perfectly practical things we can actually make, that's... wild. And the fact that a lot of them are *already* in devices (like the iPod, for instance)... well, that's just outstanding.

We just need ultracaps in the power and size ranges that batteries cover right now, and we'll *really* have taken a step forward with our portable devices. Because batteries suck.:) But ultracaps are proving to be very, very hard.:(

I think the point was that it is weird to be promoting 15cm "nearby" transfer instead of just dropping the device in a little desktop dish (still a wireless solution), gently curved and slippery to help the phone settle at distance of, say,.5cm. This might even be nicer for users - chargers do make it easier to locate your phone.

My questions:

1) any chance of an interoperable standard? Or are we back to the bad old days of pre-microUSB proprietary chargers?

It would be nice if we could standardise this stuff. There are a few recharging matts* knocking around for sale at the moment, but all the systems are incompatible. Manufacturers won't build this into mobile phones etc. unless it's their own system or a standard.

Just when we're finally converging around USB as a standard charger, it looks like we're going to have half a dozen wireless charging systems (one for Fujitsu, one for Apple...).

*I do know that this isn't one of those, but it will still need infrastructure on the charged side.

There definitely needs to be a set standard. I suspect IEEE or another such organization will eventually step up and figure out an agreeable standard.

However, the technology hasn't advanced to the point where it's exactly realistic for most people, or even truly usable. Unless there is a significant breakthrough in the near future, such standardization will probably not happen anytime soon.

I thought wireless power looked fantastic until I took a closer look at what you are actually getting. You can't just chuck your phone on the wireless charger pad and have it magically charge the phone. You need to either add a special "sleave" to the product you want to charge wirelessly or actually plug the product into the charge pad using various adapters which completely negates any real benefit from "wireless" power.

So for gadgets that currently are not "wireless power" enabled the tech kinda sucks and it is being overhyped in a major way - at least based on the product packaging and in-store displays that I've seen. It will be interesting to see if it takes off when manufacturers find a way to seamlessly incorporate this into new devices

As a follow on to my earlier post, this is the clincher for the tech - from the article:

"Fujitsu's system couples a coil with a capacitor in receiving devices. The size of the device determines the size of coil it can accommodate and that in turn affects the capacitance."

So the bigger the coil in the receiving device the better. That aint going to go down so well for mobile phones, ipods etc where the size of the battery/power supply is absolutely crucial to the success of the product i.e. smaller is better. If it doesn't make sense for the mobile market then it won't be anything more than a niche product for the foreseeable future. Particularly when the benefit hardly comes close to outweighing the cost - really, how hard is it to plug a phone in?

I would agree with you, but then again I've lost the charging cable for several phones in the past. When companies refuse to standardise their connections (MicroUSB on all mobile phones please. Support charging by USB. That is all.) you get stuck with a very pretty paperweight, or the cost of a proprietary cable.

Now, I only buy phones with MicroUSB connections. If I didn't need to worry about that for charging (this wireless charging tech), then I wouldn't need a cable at all. I can connect over Wireless L

So the bigger the coil in the receiving device the better. That aint going to go down so well for mobile phones, ipods etc where the size of the battery/power supply is absolutely crucial to the success of the product i.e. smaller is better.

The wires of the coil only need to carry micro-amps, and can therefore be extremely thin. I could see the coil being made of stainless steel and being cast into the case of the device. The case would be reinforced slightly by the coil, and it would add less weight than providing for the current external connector.

The power is not transmitted via an electric toothbrush type induction coil. It's transmitted through magnetic resonance which is an entirely different physical process that lets the transmission work when the charger and the device to be charged are not touching.

Watch the CNET video I linked to above and notice how utterly mystified the presenter is that the Christmas tree light branch lights are lit up and the device has no embedded power source and is not physically touching or adjacent to the power sou

Magnetic induction you induce the electrons to a higher energy state with voltage coupons and customer rewards points. Magnetic resonance the charging device creates a catchy phrase which it repeats with high frequency across many mediums till the mobile device can't help but resonant the catch phrase subconsciously thus increasing its energy state. That's what the marketing dept tells me....

I modded you up, then thought about it for a sec. I think they're talking about using evanescent waves [wikipedia.org] instead of classical mutual inductance. Evanescent waves separate the near field and far field [wikipedia.org] when modeling antennas, btw.

Using a lamp as a demonstration is disingenuous though as lamps don't need batteries and the techs reason detre is battery powered devices.

1) you forgot an important grave which turns "reason d'etre" into stupidity.

2) Using a lamp as a demonstration is just fine, because lamps don't have batteries but they do require a wire. I want to eventually eliminate ALL the wires in my home. As this technology matures it may become possible.

I actually saw one of their demonstrations and it was cool. The pad was just a slightly thick mousepad like device, and you could put multiple phones of different types on it at the same time and at any orientation. They had modified battery modules to contain their own chip which did the inductive pick up and regulation. They said their goal was to get the chip built into devices by default, although unless the chip was very cheap, I suspect this would have been difficult to include in cost sensitive mobile phones and iPods.

IDK, especially since I already have one in my home. It's a flat "pad" that plugs into the wall. You lay a Wii controller on the pad, and it charges the controller without plugging it in to anything. Sounds like this is the same technology referenced in the article.

I'm hoping that charging everthing from USB beats it to the punch. There are already piles of cheap car apaptors, wall warts, solar etc in addition to PCs and powered hubs. One octopus-like charger with leads going in all directions beats a long power strip with a lot of wide transformer plugs. About the only downside is slow charging speeds due to low current, but a lot of the time that doesn't matter.Building half a transformer into all of these gadgets adds weight, cost and complexity in addition to the power transfer being lossy.

A lot of devices use USB charging already so a lot of people have a charger (or more than one). It also has the advantage that any computer is a charger by default, so even if you don't have a dedicated charging unit, you can still charge your device. I charge my phone off my laptop when I travel, so I only have to bring the laptop's cord. Also, USB is a nice, standard data interface. Means that in the event the device needs data, you don't need another port.

My smartphone, my Logitech remote, our camera at work, and so on all charge from, and communicate by, USB and it is really nice.

To me, wireless charging seems stupid since it is extremely range limited. You can't have wireless charging as in "I have a charger in my kitchen and devices everywhere in the house charge." The pesky inverse square law bites that in the ass. It is something where they have to be close to touching. Ok well that just means instead of plugging in your device, you instead plug in a charger, and then set your device on it. Oh yay, that is so much better... Or not.

We just have to accept the fact that wires are here to stay for many things, power being the biggest one. You can't effectively convey power over anything other than an extremely short distance without a wire. Makes all wireless charging very silly if you asked me.

I mean think about it in relation to data. The reason I have a wireless AP is because that one AP lets me use my laptop anywhere in my house. I can roam around and get data at the same rate no matter what. That makes it worth having. However say rather than that, it was a little unit that had to connect to wired Ethernet and your laptop had to sit right next to it to get data. You could move an inch or two at most before losing signal. Would you bother? I wouldn't, I'd just connect the wire directly. It wouldn't save me any hassle to have to set the laptop right next to something connected to a wire over just connecting the wire itself.

If you plug in/unplug device daily (charging smartphone), you are going to see damage and suddenly you notice that you have to apply some pressue on side to make sure connection is made.. Not to mention that there is danger of prying connector loose from board - something you do not want to happen.

Wireless means there is going to be less mechanical damage. Thingie is going to have a bit increased lifespan. That seems worth it.

Well I have a pretty long history using electronic devices, including things like cellphones that you charge daily. Currently the total number of failed power connections I've seen due to regular mechanical wear is zero.

Ummm no. We have the round wheels right now. This is the square wheel that people ware trying to make roll well because they think it is cool, not because it works.

See there is this little thing, called the laws of physics, might have heard of it, that starts to get in the way here. You cannot have wireless power over any large distance without severe loss. Not possible. For it to be possible, we would have to discover that our current understanding of physics is incomplete, and then apply those new theorie

In this day and age when we want to save energy, not mess up our environment, communications and bodies by leaking it to unwanted places? Standardize on USB charges instead and wire clutter will be kept to a minimum. I see important uses in implanted medical devices, waterproof equipment and other cases when direct physical access to the device is impractical. But for cell phones/laptops this is positively silly.

Yep. I could understand people getting excited if it charged the phone as you walk around the house or via the cell tower or something. This just gives you 10cm of extra distance, you still have to put your phone on it and leave it there to charge. If you're really too lazy to insert a plug (about three seconds) then a dock is just as simple and takes up less desk space.

But that's not what it's about. It's about appearance. Messing around with wires and plugs makes you sound like a poor person.

Because of the inverse cube law for wireless power transfer, I think we'll ultimately be using this kind of laser technology in future, fitted to house ceilings and street lamps. If blocking obstacles become an issue, then the receiving device can also send a purely informational laser back to the source to make sure that it's okay to beam the power laser at it, and in this case the initial source power laser can be instantly shut off, similar to those 'SawStop' table saws that shut off in milliseconds if the hand gets in the way to prevent loss of fingers.

That only applies for broadcast, this is [almost] unicasting. Last I checked the technology used phased arrays.

If blocking obstacles become an issue, then the receiving device can also send a purely informational laser back to the source to make sure that it's okay to beam the power laser at it, and in this case the initial source power laser can be instantly shut off, similar to those 'SawStop' table saws that shut off in milliseconds if the hand gets in the way to prevent loss of fingers.

Even if laser power made sense (which it does not) this is not the way you would do it. You would add a data stream to the power laser, just as the signal on a sawstop system is gathered from the blade itself and not from a separate sensor. Data stream is affected, then power is being interrupted. It's either that or basically surrounding the power beam with the informational beam, or an array ther

1. The vast majority of people do not change the batteries in their phones. They simply replace the phone when the battery degrades. Especially with the 'new every two' thing Verizon does (and competitor equivalents), I don't see that being a big issue.

2. It doesn't have to be ALL phones. Some phones can still have swappable batteries and others can be completely sealed. Vote with your wallet.

I do see a potential problem if phones lock up and cannot easily be reset, but if that's a

People that live near high tension towers have put up coils to suck up stray power for years. The power companies frown on this, but my feeling is that it makes up for shortening peoples lives because of living next to these things.

feeling is that it makes up for shortening peoples lives because of living next to these things.

You know that was debunked years ago, right? The original studies had massive flaws, and one researcher even admitted years later that he fudged results. Large scale studies since then have been conclusively negative.

This is a well-trodden area-- explored by many folks, starting with Tesla. Unfortunately there are several very basic phisical showbunglers if not showstoppers.Issues that are fundamental to electromagnetic radiation:

(1) If you send out EM waves, the efficiency of the antennas is like 1% at low frequencies, wasting 99.99% of the power. If you use microwave frequencies, the antennas are much more efficient, but so is your body's ability to absorb the stuff, which is not a good thing.

(2) If you try this near-field coupled resonator thing (first tried in 1886), you son find out it has very limited range, and you need coils as large as the distance to be spanned, and the power drops off as the square of the distance when near, as the cube of the distance a little bit farther away.

These are basic Maxwell's equation impediments that are unlikely to ever be overcome.

Moderators, this is not informative, unless you did not know that ignorance prevails.

1) this is called a "transformer". There have been a few in use since Westinghouse ran Thomas Edison out of the power production business. Some experienced power plant engineers think they're actually useful at 60Hz, and are a little more efficient than 1%.

2) that is why the charger is a pad that you lay the mobile device on when the device needs charging. The coupling distance is very short when THEY ARE IN PHYSICAL CO

So if adoption is widespread we can increase energy consumption by gadgets by 15% across the board in the name of saving "clutter".
I guess all that energy is coming from sustainable, non-polluting sources, so it's probably ok.

Basically. It's really just a gimmick unless they can scale it up and have something similar to a wifi hotspot that charges your mobile devices while you're close enough. If they can pull that off without too much waste (good luck) and make it as common as wifi then mobile devices could have smaller batteries and/or more computing power. Not that the lack of such technology will stop manufacturers from offering smaller batteries and more computing power.

Let me state it clearly for the record: reducing power consumption never has and never will have any significant impact on ecological degradation as a result of pollution. The only way get rid of dirty energy is to get rid of dirty energy. We have access to incredible amounts of kinetic energy from wind and waves and thermal energy from the planetary mantle and good old sunlight, enough to outstrip anything that can be produced by coal, oil, or fission. The only reason we don't have it i

not really the same, even if both things are technically transformers. The typical transformer has the coils very close together and is designed to not radiate power outside the box (and is probably shielded as well) - any EM radiating outside the transformer is energy lost, so is to be avoided. Where as this thing is made to radiate. I wouldn't just blow off any health concerns.

It was one of the early charging designs, though the inductive coupler on the source side was a paddle that slid into a slot in the side of the car. It was an effort to get a high current, exposed electrode out of the way of human contact.

As for getting a pad for charging, the key is getting the coils close enough for efficient transfer. Others here have referenced an inverse-cubed law for RF power transmission. So for a car, you're talking a lot of energy, and you want minimal losses. Even at 15cm (to the